Those Torn Asunder
by aghamora
Summary: Married in black, you will wish yourself back. - - Jade/Beck, Tori/Beck, oneshot.


**Summary: **Married in black, you will wish yourself back. - - Jade/Beck, Tori/Beck, oneshot

**Note: **If there are any errors with the tensing in this, feel free to point them out to me. This is the first piece I've written in quite a while that, for the most part, isn't in present tense.

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing you recognize.

* * *

_**Those Torn Asunder**_

* * *

She doesn't like to think about her past, about what might have been if only she'd done _this_ or _that_ in a different way and been less pigheaded and more agreeable. She doesn't like to regret what is beyond her abilities to change. However, she always ends up thinking about that lost era anyway, because it haunts her and follows her as if it is her shadow, whenever she allows her mind to wander. It blows on the wind, falls with the rain, reflects off the gleaming skyscraper windows all across New York City. It is everywhere - in every face she sees, in every breath she takes. It is not something she can simply shut her eyes to and ignore.

She also doesn't like being alone, but she is. At thirty-five, her once vibrant youth is fast slipping away from her, and leaving traces of untimely wrinkles carved on her face in it's wake. She is no longer so mean-spirited. She is no longer drenched in black; instead, she is covered with white. And every time she opens her eyes to a new morning in her fantastic New York penthouse, she always rolls over and half expects to awake to the feeling of warm arms encircling her waist, or a chaste kiss pressed onto her cheek to jostle her senses and prickle her skin, or a hot breakfast cooked just for her, or _something, anything_ to remind her that this big lonely place does not have just _her_ as its sole inhabitant – when in fact it does.

Does he awake next to another, or alone, like she does? It's been years since she saw him last, and that final encounter was only filled with bitter stares and spilled coffee and _no looking backs_. Is he with Cat, _Trina, _or another woman whose identity is unknown to her? Does _he_ wake up to everything she doesn't - to warm arms, to the tender touch of a lover, of another _wife_? One with hair the color of red velvet… or one who is likely a selfish lover, and gives nothing and takes everything? Or, does his lonely body simply roll over to frigid bedclothes, shivering and aching for a human's, _any_ human's touch? The questions never cease to fill her mind.

Every time she opens her eyes to her lonesome world, a dark shade suddenly emerges from behind her, and then she's covered in black once more, sucked into her terrible past no matter how hard she fights for freedom. And, surrounded by the blindingly white décor of her lavish home, and the pitch black of the shadow that is the past hovering over her, she always remembers…

* * *

They had gotten engaged right out of high school.

Literally.

Shockingly enough, he hadn't been the one who had proposed. She was.

She can remember that day all so clearly, so vividly, as if it were only yesterday. It had happened on the night of graduation, when the pair had forsaken Tori's lame graduation party for a revelry of their own in his RV, still donning their blue graduation apparel and grinning like fools because they had finally become something like adults. The thrill of the day was still pumping through their bodies, somewhat of a drug to the two teenagers, and they had been taking this exhilaration out on each other - in the form of a rather passionate locking of the lips, of course, as there'd never been any other way they'd taken their emotions out on each other.

"This…" he had said between kisses, coming up for air before she swiftly pulled him under again, "is…way better than any…graduation party." She had just smiled from her place on top of him and conquered his lips with hers once more, claiming victory with little opposition. They'd been so close that she had been able to feel her own breath bounce off his skin and hit her own pale flesh, and it made her body tremble. She had loved that feeling: the sense that they simply could not get any closer, that they were one body, not two. Such a feeling it had been…Indescribable, fantastic, inimitable; an emotion like no other and one she fears she will never be able to find again.

"Tell me about it," she smirked, and in her eyes, he had seen that wicked glint that'd done nothing to deter him from what he'd known their bodies both wanted. Off had gone their graduation gowns, unsurprisingly. It was when they were down to their undergarments, and when he had been kissing her neck, that she had managed to gasp a hardly coherent sentence out:

"Let's…let's get married." At first, she hadn't realized that she'd said anything out of the ordinary, until he had stopped what he was doing and looked up at her as if she'd suddenly gone off the deep end (_and in a way, she had. love had driven her off the deep end._)

"…What?" She remembers him doing a double take, because… well, she _had_ kind of killed the moment. Her cheeks had darkened to a rare light pink – a display she'd never let anyone except him see - but she had not taken back her proposal. Her words had hung between them as she stared him in the eyes, her gaze unyielding, her confidence steady.

"I said, let's get married."

"Wait, why? We just got out of high school." He had not been doing anything to further the shedding of clothes, and the delay frustrated her even more than his indecision. In hindsight, they _had_ just been _kids_, inexperienced and unworldly _kids_ who were playing a risky game called love they knew little about and were eventually doomed to lose. They hadn't been ready - not at all - and he had known it all along. To this day, she's still not sure why he didn't refuse, for it would have saved the two of them much heartbreak and pain if he'd only told her '_no_.' He'd rarely refuse her anything, though,and although he didn't intend it to, it had helped bring about their ruin.

"Why not?" She'd been smiling in a way that could have ensnared anyone's heart and held it for an eternity, and even though his conscience had been yelling at him to do otherwise, he had ginned back:

"Let's do it."

She wishes that she'd known that those words were the beginning of the end.

* * *

She had begged him to elope. He only reminded her that she was the one who wanted to get married in the first place, and then he had kissed her on the mouth and pushed the doorbell to his parent's home.

Over dinner that night – the night they had told his parents - the first words out of his mother's mouth had, of course, been:

"Oh, honey, she isn't pregnant, is she?"

Meanwhile, his dad had just sat there, staring down at his steaming plate of pot roast and mashed potatoes uselessly, with his beer belly hanging over his belt and an undeviating frown drawn out onto his mouth. Back then, she had silently willed their relationship never to turn out like his parents' had: only lingering because divorce was too much of a hassle. It wouldn't turn out that way, she'd told herself. It would _last._

_It had to._

It had been perfectly clear to her that they did not like her, yet; somehow, she had cared not a bit. She had only needed him… and he was all she had. When she was young, she was stupid enough to believe that _he_ was all _she_ needed, and that _she_ was all _he_ needed, that they would always be enough for each other, that they would sustain each other for a lifetime, until the sun could no longer burn. First love tends to do that to you, she realizes now; tends to blur your judgment and make bad decisions for you and obliterate your common sense because the heart's will is often more prominent than the mind's. They hadn't been thinking clearly about the consequences of tying themselves together at only eighteen years of age. Trusting that they'd last forever because they were _Beck and Jade_ and nothing could ever tear them apart was childish – but still, they had done it. They were invincible; they'd take on the world as long as they had the other by their side.

Oh, she thinks, everyone's indestructible when they're young, and they were no exception. That precious, golden youth is always wasted on the young, isn't it? But all those years ago, unconquerable as they were, he had just laughed edgily, squeezed her hand, and told them that, "No. We're just…in love. Really in love."

His parents' faces betrayed almost no hint of genuine emotion. His mother simply had smiled – a Botox-laden, asymmetrical smirk - and said something along the lines of "Well, then. How wonderful for you." His father just put on a dead grin, and she'd squeezed Beck's hand back and soundlessly commanded his smile to never ever _ever_ die like his father's had, because it was so beautiful, so full of life.

They'd finished the rest of the dinner together in silence, with each mind wandering away from the supper table and out into the world – into a forsaken past for some, a bright future for others. There were no inquires about the wedding plans, no voiced objections about their son's choice of bride, no requests for _this_ family member or _that_ family friend to attend. She had hated it, even if, inside, she hadn't wanted them prodding into their lives. She had desired some sort of maternal support, for she'd been starved of it as a young girl, but none had been offered. It had calmed and angered her at the same time. She hadn't wanted a mother or a father. Oh no - only the support and understanding they could have given her. Most people had never done anything but get in her way; it was the wisdom that could come from them she craved. The best (_and only_) advice her mother ever gave her was something to the effect of '_don't get knocked up by an asshole_.' Good advice it was, but nothing like a good mother could have given.

The icy eyes of Beck's mother had hit hers all of a sudden, and she'd known right then, that she'd never have a mother. Not one by blood, or by marriage. She'd always be virtually motherless (_and fatherless, too_). She'd always be an orphan no one but Beck wanted.

She'd wondered if she'd be a better person if only someone in her family wanted her. Would she be less cold, less mean?

But, afterwards, she remembers groaning, "Do they _have_ to be my in-laws?" He'd just grinned and nodded and kissed her on her cheek.

"Seeing as I only have one set of parental units… yes, they do."

* * *

Cat had squealed and declared herself maid of honor.

Tori had put on a somewhat jealous smile and congratulated her.

Andre had just held Tori's hand and grinned.

Robbie had wished her well with half a heart.

Rex had shaken his wooden head and mumbled something about _'such a woman being taken off the market.'_

Trina had long since lost the ability to think about anyone other than herself.

Sinjin had frowned.

Her mother had just scoffed and taken another swig of tequila.

* * *

She remembers how those months had been pure hell, how she'd just ended up wanting the whole thing to be over with as soon as possible. Since they'd (_he'd_) decided they needed to tie the knot before their group of friends left for college in the fall, they needed to condense months of planning into only eight weeks. Needless to say, it had not been easy. In fact, it had been _hell_, because Cat had been bent on forcing Jade to try on every wedding dress _except _the black ones. She had seriously contemplated strangling the girl for a half-second, but decided against it because then she'd have to have Tori or Trina as her maid of honor if she gave in to her homicidal wishes, and neither of the two were preferable choices.

So Cat had stayed alive.

"I am _seriously_ going to have a _fucking_ mental breakdown if I have to try on another dress that isn't black!" is what she had screamed at the ever-excitable girl in the middle of a quaint dress shop. Cat had been doing almost all the work in terms of dressing Jade, for the employees were too busy looking on in fear at yet another case of the ubiquitous _bridezilla._

"Come on! You can't get married in _black_! You know what they say about getting married in that color!"

"What do they say?" Jade had rolled her eyes and braced her common sense for some brainless old superstition about bad signs and misfortune and fallacies that her maid of honor had been spouting ever since they had announced their engagement almost a month ago.

"_Married in black, you'll wish yourself back_," she had quoted smoothly, as if she'd spent all her free time memorizing those thickheaded sayings. While chattering away, the velvet-headed girl had zipped up the back of the latest fashion monstrosity she'd thrown on Jade and closed her eyes and hoped for the best.

"That's a load of bullshit, Cat." She had closed her eyes for the imminent _'What's that supposed to mean?'_ but it never came. And, predictably, '_the best'_ certainly had not happened, when the dark girl stormed over to a mirror and took a look at herself, "Cat?"

She really _had_ sounded like she was about to explode, so the summoned girl scurried over immediately.

"Yeah Jade?"

"Is…is this _frilly_?" Bad omens all but forgotten, she had fingered the creamy yellow fabric in sheer repugnance, as if the thing was paining her skin just to wear. Cat had shrugged.

"Yeah, it is. Why?"

And then, the small girl had been running for her life.

* * *

It had been at the final rehearsal that she had finally gotten cold feet. Despite her blood of ice, her feet had stayed unusually warm during the two months of planning, but she'd finally lost it that night for it had dawned on her that, in two days time, it wouldn't be just a rehearsal. It would actually be _happening. _Practice was always so much easier than the real thing, but they couldn't practice /girlfriend would become a label of the past, and husband/wife would replace it.

_Was it right?_ That question alone had dominated her thoughts, and she could focus on little else. Was it a mistake to marry at such a young age? Right as they had been standing together, in front of their friends and relatives – _Jade and Beck_ against the world – she'd freaked, and, with quaking knees, had thrown down the bouquet of fake purple flowers they had been practicing with and flown out of the reception hall at an impressive speed, pushing past the bridesmaids coldly and almost maiming Andre, the best man.

Beck had torn after her, and finally, he'd caught her at the curb in front of the church, shuddering in the cooling fall air. She'd been hunched over, with her legs clutched to her chest as if trying to keep them from falling out of her grasp, because everything else seemed to be slipping away – her teenage years, her freedom. The cars on the street had sped past in the darkness, their headlights illuminating the road all so briefly as they rode away and left behind the remains of a transitory, bright shine. In the dimness, his eyes almost hadn't been able to spot her, until one set of headlights fell onto her and lit up her features. She'd looked mostly like a ghost shrinking away from the daylight, but she'd also worn the face of a lost and scared little girl, one who had no idea where she belonged in the world even though she was being tied down. She'd known that it had slightly frightened him – the always self-assured Jade so utterly scared stiff. She had a keen nose; she could smell fear miles away, and _Lord_, they were both petrified.

"Go away," she remembers telling him.

"Cold feet?" he had taken his place beside her on the concrete – too far away for his taste. He scooted closer to her, and she had only moved away.

"Go away." She heaved a poorly timed, shuddering sigh of anguish and dropped her head into her hands. He had just wrapped his arm around her shoulder, and spoke once more before she could recoil from his touch:

"It's okay to be nervous."

"I'm not nervous."

"Then why'd you run out like that?"

"I just…" he'd backed her into a metaphorical corner, and she unwillingly accepted defeat. For some reason, she wanted to cry, but nothing had fallen from her eyes, "Is…is it right? To get married now, I mean?"

"I dunno. Is it?"

"Must you _always_ answer a question with a question?" She punched his shoulder lightly, even though she'd been smiling. She'd let the city buzz take the place of their voices for a minute, but he didn't let it last long:

"You wanna go back inside?" Slowly, she'd nodded her head and stood, and he'd helped her up and into his arms. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and she'd felt content – even if a voice inside her head had been telling her something, voicing a warning she hadn't been able to hear at the time. Or perhaps she had heard, but chose not to listen, because she thought she'd known exactly what she was getting herself into.

"Are…are we ready for this, Beck?" The wind had picked up their hair and swept it about, weaving a coffee halo around her pastel face. She remembers how he had tucked a stray piece behind her ear for her, caringly, with such a love that she was sure no one else felt toward her because they just didn't _understand_. She thinks of how it had been cold, oh so _cold_. Her dress had felt like ice on her trembling body, but his touch was a flame – burning without a foreseeable end. Now, she knows that _foreseeable end_ does not guarantee a forever, does not guarantee an endless future. Oh no, it only leaves room for _hope_ that it will last forever. They had not foreseen it, but that hadn't meant the end would never come. Just because one is blind does not mean that the world stops moving around them. It had only meant that, when the end arrived, they weren't going to fully realize it… until it was too late.

"Carpe diem, right?" he'd answered.

They had walked back inside hand in hand, but now she realizes that he'd never really answered her.

* * *

She caught Tori looking at Beck when they entered the building once more - longingly, almost with a hint of pity and sorrow in her eyes - and she had caught him looking back with a strange reflection of that sadness.

She had been too besotted with the idea of matrimony to dwell on it.

* * *

They had gotten married in a small ceremony that was utterly draped in black. She had insisted on it; he'd just smiled and nodded. It had looked more like a funeral than a wedding, and any ignorant passerby would have guessed the very same thing. She had not taken something old, something new, something borrowed, or something blue with her to the ceremony. There were no flowers save for her bouquet, and she let him see her in her dress before the wedding. She had contradicted superstition in every way, as if tempting fate to try to break them apart, boldly daring any entity to end what they had called true love. She remembers being so sure, so young, so in love… and so, so very _foolish. _She realizes that that was perhaps a grave mistake – to have stuck her tongue out at fate like she had - because destiny does not just forget those who taunt it. Oh no… it holds a nasty grudge, and swears vengeance, too.

She did not place a penny in her shoe like tradition called for, and she did not walk to the church. On the way, she had spotted an open grave: a bad omen, according to Cat. She'd even caught her long black dress in the limo door and ripped a small section of the fabric off. She had laughed it off as _just a little accident_, instead of realizing that something was trying urgently to send her some sort of a message, that fate had been doing all it could to stop her… and she'd not been paying any attention.

At the ceremony, she gave herself away, for she'd never been anyone else's to give.

"I do," he'd said it without hesitation.

"I do," she'd said it _almost_ without hesitation.

_Was_ it a funeral? she wonders now. _Were_ they actually mourning the loss of their freedom, the loss of their inner children? Was it truly a funeral in which they buried those carefree high school years of theirs under the earth, never to be seen again? But she'd been so very happy that day, though, so much so that it could not have _possibly_ been a funeral – at least not in her eyes. She'd smiled and laughed more in that phase of the moon than in any other. She'd never loved him more. She'd never yearned for life so much. It had strengthened her will to live, if nothing else, for that used to be very weak indeed.

"Well…we're married," he had pointed out during their first dance as husband and wife, while they whirled about in a shadowed cyclone, spinning on the otherwise deserted dance floor with the guests looking on and Tori Vega's dagger eyes boring into her back, the utter envy the most acidic thing she'd ever felt. He had been such an awful slow dancer, she recalls, but he'd managed to (_mostly_) avoid stepping on her toes.

"No, really?" she grinned. With their heads together, their hearts always pounding half a second behind the beat of the music, and his hand on her back to guide her to the slow melody, she thinks now that that may have been just about the happiest moment of her life – all alone with him in spirit even if far from it in actuality.

"I love you, Beck."

"I love _you_, Jade." And their eyes had laughed, because their mouths had suddenly been too busy.

It had been the greatest day of her life; the best thing she'd ever done up until that moment. If he had agreed to elope with her… they would have gotten married wearing jeans and t-shirts in some cheap Las Vegas chapel, by a preacher of rather questionable morals. She had thought, back then, that she would have rather eloped than taken part in the circus-wedding they put on, but now she realizes how important that ceremony was, as opposed to a clandestine elopement that would have infuriated everyone they knew. She wouldn't have those memories if they had just ran away together – memories of cutting the cake and dancing and throwing the bouquet and watching it fall into Cat Valentine's delighted arms. Now that she's all alone, and their marriage has come to a sour end, she hangs onto these memories, for they're more precious to her than the wealth she has, than the designer clothing, than the penthouse overlooking the bustling streets of The Big Apple. All she has is just an empty life, and she'd trade it in an instant for a day in their dinky apartment, for another night with him, for another taste of that sheer ecstasy when their bodies rocked together as one. It's all empty… because it isn't _him._

But she's getting ahead of herself.

She sifts through the piles of memories once more, in an attempt to find the proper time to think on, and then remembers how the guests had showered them with rice while they descended the red brick stairs of the church, laughing all the way and holding onto each other's arm. It had looked just like Mother Nature had at last decided to pour snow on Los Angeles, just for the occasion of their wedding. She'd kissed him in front of all the guests, and he'd spun her around, and they'd both thought, then, that _that_ was what happy was supposed to feel like.

* * *

After almost all the guests had left, the newlyweds had remained. While he was inside the church and she was on the outside lawn behind the building, she'd scooped up a handful of the discarded rice and tossed it into the air above her, only to watch it drizzle down upon her body again moments later. The rice had acted as one final declaration of their wedding, one final proclamation that she was no longer a _West_, but an _Oliver_. She was _Jade Oliver._ Moments after her palm had released the tiny specks, the autumn wind had taken a few of the grains away, carrying them to a place far, far off, a place she'd likely never see. Some others landed in her flowing hair, but most were stolen when a flock of blackbirds alighted upon her from the skies and pecked the rice from all around her. It had been quite a peculiar sight: her face the only drop of white in the field of black, an unbalanced yin-yang. She had watched them, as they had fought with each other for the nourishment they all so desperately craved, and she hadn't realized, back then, how her relationship with Beck would still continue to be a perpetual struggle for power. Like the birds fought for food, they'd always struggle for control and neither would ever be completely satisfied.

Jokingly, she remembers how she'd really sucked at similes.

With one wave of her hand, she had scared the creatures off and they'd had taken back to the sky, the many animals moving with the precision and swiftness of one being instead of the dozens that they were. She'd spun around just in time to see the last lingering guest, Tori, walk up to her car, unlock it, and yank open the door with a ferocity unusual for someone usually so calm and collected. Jade had smirked at her once taking notice of this, a derisive sparkle in her eyes almost clearly speaking the words, _I won, Vega. I won him, and you lost. I have him; he's mine. He chose _me_. Who's shining now?_

She'd laughed aloud at those thoughts and twirled around in the breeze like a young girl in a field of flowers. She'd watched her dark dress billow around her legs, fascinated with the dark movement for some odd reason. She'd been the one shinning oh so brightly for a change. She hadn't thought about how all radiant stars must burn out in the end, or about how they're replaced with a shiny new one once they've become ugly, hated black holes. It had been her wedding day: sad thoughts were forbidden from entering her brain. But still, they festered somewhere in the recesses of her joy-clouded mind, existing even if not pondered.

And, caught in the elation of her so-called _final triumph_ as she was, she had been too blinded by love to see Tori send her back a covetous glare that responded, _Well_, w_e'll see, won't we?_

* * *

She can't find herself able to remember anything about their wedding night other than the fact that they had christened their new one bedroom apartment during it. Pleasure tends to supersede the other senses, she's learned, and she has few memories of that heavenly evening.

It did not last long.

* * *

Their first fight had come only a week later – still technically in their _honeymoon phase_ - when he'd come home with the newest addition to their lives: a dog.

And no, not just _any_ kind of dog. A _Rottweiler._

"What is this…this _beast_ doing in our apartment?" she'd demanded instantly, eyeing the animal with absolute contempt as she remembered what happened the last time they came into contact with that certain breed of dog. They'd been standing in the kitchen, and she had been making herself a sandwich when she had first taken notice of the animal, and she'd almost dropped the knife she was holding.

"_He's _our new dog," he'd stated casually, while leading the dog in by its collar and tossing his keys on the table.

"Don't you remember what happened last time one of us brought home a _Rottweiler_?" she'd fumed at him, all the while careful of getting too close to the dog standing before her in their tiny kitchen lest it decide to let its supposedly hidden fury loose on her.

"Yeah. But my dad's not here, so he can't get mauled again."

"A-and _why_ wasn't I consulted about this?" He'd only shrugged in reply and unleashed the dog into the house without another word. With that gesture, he had tried to end the discussion, but to no avail, for she'd been _unimaginably _furious that he'd seen fit to decide this without her. She had not hesitated to let him know that she expected him to have the dog out within the hour.

"Take it back. _Now_."

"What?" he'd raised his eyebrows in surprise, "Babe, I adopted him. I can't take him back."

"Take it to the pound. Let it loose. I don't care. Just get it out of here!" And then, a moment after she'd spoken, something had changed in his face, registered in his mind. She wasn't sure what it had been. _Confidence_? Is that what it was? Had confidence finally found it's way into him after straying for all his life? She'd always been the one with the power, and to think that he may have seen fit to usurp her…it infuriated her even more.

"No," he said simply.

"_What_ did you just say?"

"No."

"_No_?"

"No, I won't take him back."

"Take it back!"

"No. He'll stay here. It'll be fun to have a dog, anyways."

"_Fun_?" she scoffed. Oh, apparently that had possessed radically different notions of that word.

"Yeah."

"Well," she'd struggled for a witty response for a moment, "then _he_ can sleep on the couch, where _you'll_ be sleeping tonight, _darling husband_." She'd lathered a sugary coating onto her words while smiling evilly, and when that confidence on his stupid face had dissipated - only to recover again minutes later - she'd been so _sure_ that he would never dare to challenge her again.  
"Fine." His acceptance had surprised her, honestly. It had shown on her face and he'd seen it plain as day, and with a satisfied grin, he'd walked off to rid himself of his work clothes.

"F…fine!" She'd growled and thrown her unfinished sandwich away. She never was able to eat while fuming, "But I'm not walking it!"

In retrospect, it'd just been a petty quarrel, and despite her frequent complaints, the dog had stayed. But the instant he had decided to stand his ground had marked the beginning of a new chapter of their relationship: a chapter in which she was no longer in total control of writing.

It was only the first of many fights, and so their happiness, unlike his newfound confidence, had dispersed quickly.

* * *

They hadn't gone to college. They had been convinced that they were destined to see their names up in lights, rolling in the credits after all the major movies, on the lips of dozens of screaming fans. Nothing else could happen. There had been no Plan B, no alternative. They'd hovered near the line of poverty for all their time as a married couple, and they both worked crappy jobs and both auditioned and got rejected. She'd never believed she wouldn't make it in show business, but he'd always sort of known.

Weren't they going to make it in Hollywood? She'd asked herself that question _every fucking night. _And no one would ever answer her; not even her conscience bothered to speak up. They were destined for greatness, but destiny had seemed to be leading them nowhere other than _down._ Every day, the rejections had just kept pouring in, while Tori Vega scored hit single after hit single and blockbuster after blockbuster.

And weren't the perfect people supposed to be the ones who failed, instead of staying in that bubble of flawlessness? She'd only begun to ask herself more and more questions, begun to understand her world less and less as the familiarity of her happy high school days became naught but a distant memory. Weren't the damaged one - the _underdogs_ - meant to prevail in the end? He only had told her that Hollywood wasn't fair, that they should keep trying. And they had just kept clumsily stumbling onward, through a tunnel without a light at its end.

At least they did it hand in hand.

* * *

"Another rejection," he'd breathed a sigh and thrown himself on bed next to her. Though it was only two months after their wedding, he was too tired for much talking, and already far too tired for intimacy of any sort. His lively smile was in critical condition, already near death. It was sad how quickly things had taken a turn for the worse, how rapidly hope and dreams and love were shattered by the cold eyes of innumerable directors.

"Assholes," she'd been clutching her pillow in between her fingers until they were whiter than was probably healthy, but didn't stop, "Pricks." She was mumbling, already as drained as he was because being a waitress had not been very fun when most of the customers were just old pervs who checked her out.

Desperately, she'd tried to imagine that they were laying on satin sheets, that they were perfect, rich household names… but it didn't work.

"Said I wasn't what they were looking for."

"We never are," she'd exhaled and moved closer to him, burying her face into Beck and taking in his scent greedily, as if she'd forget what it was like tomorrow. They were eighteen, aspiring actors, in love - but already emotionally depleted to a worrying degree, "Will we ever be? What they're looking for?"

"Dunno."

"But it'll happen one day." Her words were a question hiding in a statement's body, "It has to."

"Hopefully," was all he said.

She'd turned off the light.

* * *

Oh, it had been doomed from the start. It had been a ticking time bomb.

They had fought like a long-married couple even before they tied the knot, and when they _did_ marry, nothing really seemed to change. They fought no less; loved no more. They'd always felt like they were already man and wife even before they were engaged, anyway. They'd been bound to each other, somehow, some way.

But, she wonders, had there been a particular hour when it all fell apart, or was it a gradual spiral downward into that black abyss of misery she knows all so well? How had she not been able to see that her marriage was failing, and that they were not doing anything to save it because they were too blinded by the preservation of their pride?

It had been a ticking time bomb before they married and when they did tie themselves together, they only sped up the explosion. It had been doomed from the start, for theirs was a passion so great that it had simply fizzled out all at once.

* * *

The first time she had kicked him out of the apartment had been because he was two hours late from his job at the guitar shop and Jade convinced herself that he was with someone else. He wouldn't have been late for any other reason, for he had always been _right on time,_ down to the second, with his accuracy. He had finally trudged in the door at seven, only half awake at that hour and in no mood for the woman who awaited him on the couch; the one flipping idly through an old photo album filled with multitudes of pictures of them together and frowning down at the age-yellowed pages filled with happiness and smiles and times when she didn't wear a wedding ring on her finger. She had been a woman scorned by her own cynical mind - perhaps the worst type, she thinks now, for a woman never likes being told that her instincts are wrong.

"Jade?" Her head hadn't snapped up to acknowledge his arrival, as she had heard the jangle of his keys in the door moments before. She'd only turned the page and frowned more, "Everything okay?" _That_ had finally made her slam the book shut and throw it on the rickety coffee table near the couch and growl under her breath. She folded her arms, gnawing on her lip, and rage had been bubbling under her skin. It had felt as if a volcanic eruption was torturously being held in with every second her mouth stayed shut.

"Well, I don't know, _dear. _Depends on who you're screwing behind my back!" she'd spat, climbing from the couch and stalking over to him. She was certain of it. He had been fucking someone else, having an affair – _of course he had_. She had been wrong to expect that just then - oh no, _the affair_ hadn't happened until later. But, she'd still been furious with his befuddled eyes and supposedly feigned innocence. He had been _cheating_ on her. She'd been convinced it was true. How _dare_ he act like nothing had happened? How _dare_ he lie to her face?

"Wait, what?" Her hands had been balled into fists. He had been pretty sure that she was going to punch him and had stayed on his guard, ready to duck from her blows - but also prepared to calm her down if she burst out crying, for he was never quite sure which would happen. He hadn't needed to do either, however, for all she had done was throw up her hands and exclaim a few words in defeat, as if she'd given up, as if all the distrust had finally dulled her temper:

"Just… tell me who you're having an affair with, Beck."

"I'm not having an affair! I just got held up at work!" he exclaimed. Part of her had believed him – the logical part - but he had known for years that the rational part of Jade was never the part foremost in her mind… and he could have only expected what she had done next, vastly wrathful as she was.

"Get out," she'd ordered without thinking twice.

"Huh?"

"Get out of here. Now. And take your fucking dog with you!"

"Jade-"

"_Go_."

He had surrendered, any further protest squashed by that familiar, scorching fire in her eyes. She was determined to rid herself of his presence, and nothing would have changed her mind. He'd taken his guitar, the dog, and the clothes on his back and left, and she'd been livid enough not to care where he had crashed that night. They'd both known it wasn't permanent. But when he'd gone, she'd cried and cried and cried into her pillow, until it burned her throat to breath and pained her eyes to open.

* * *

She'd apologized the next morning, after going after him and finally finding out that he had crashed on Andre's couch. She'd struggled to say the expected, repentant words for a good long minute, but eventually a feeble _'I'm sorry'_ had pushed itself from her lips and he had forgiven her in an instant, waiting for his wife with ever-open arms as he had been as soon as she'd found herself able to apologize. She remembers how she had wondered how many times she could say that, how many wrongs she could do him, how many times she could break his heart…and still have his love to carry with her.

They'd gone home and made love, for that's all forgiveness had ever driven them to do.

* * *

Eight months into what they may have loosely termed a blissful wedlock, one argument had thrown that backbreaking straw on the metaphorical camel of their marriage, and tossed them into a downward spiral. It was a simple argument - with simple words and simple feelings and just downright _simple everything_ - but it had twisted their love into a muddle of emotion that could never have been properly sorted through… so much so that it had been hard to tell that it ever _was_ called a love.

"Do you ever think about having kids, Jade?" he'd asked the lethal question over what was had been supposed to be a romantic candlelight dinner in their apartment. Staring at his face in the gleam of the golden candle (_it had made him look flawless; it had just made her look orange_), she'd been at a loss for words for the first time in her life, and she had to cram another fork of spaghetti in her mouth just to allow her mind more time to come upon a response.

"I-I…isn't it supposed to be the _wife_ who brings that up?" she'd cried. He'd shrugged and averted his eyes back to his dinner, twirling his fork in his pasta without really trying to tangle any onto the dented utensil, a hopeless mission, hopeless cause. She remembers being horrified that he'd even dream of suggesting something like that to her, and, taken by surprise, her appetite had run away. Her stomach had turned at the very sight of the food before her. She suddenly felt sick, nauseous. She wasn't sure why.

_Kids. _Oh God, the very word had been almost as ominous as the real thing.

"Maybe. Do you?"

"N-n-_no. _A-all they do is eat and sleep and poop and _cry_! Why would you want that? Why would _we _want that?" she slammed down her fork and it had landed with a startling clatter. She hadn't known just _what_ to attribute her negative reaction to, but she hadn't found it within herself to care because he had still been piercing her with his steady stare, and he clearly wasn't going to let the matter go easily.

"That's not all they do."

"Oh, _yes_, and I'm sure anything else they could do would be a _barrel_ of fun, wouldn't it?" she'd hissed the words through angry, clenched teeth, and he sighed.

"I didn't want this to turn into an argument," he murmured against the brim of his half-empty wine glass. A tiny droplet of crimson had fallen onto the white tablecloth, spilled from the rest of bloody sea in the goblet, and she'd only gotten angrier when she'd noticed that he'd fucked up something that had once been so absolutely _spotless. _He couldn't have just left well enough alone, could he?

Perhaps '_well enough'_ was never meant to be left alone – at least not by one Beck Oliver.

"Well it has!" she sprang up out of her chair and blew out the tiny candle that once burned between them on the table. It went out with a passing cloud of smoke and left him enveloped in the dark, and his eyes had only been able to catch sight from the moonlight in the window. She had felt better, for she'd always felt more comfortable in the dark anyway. It had hidden her, and better hidden, than uncovered for all to see, exposed, vulnerable. The light, _his_ light, had uncovered her, and nothing good had come from that, she decides now. Nothing but weakness.

As he took cautious steps toward her in the cascade of lunar light, he'd forsaken the dinner they once shared and reached out an arm to touch her shoulder, in some slipshod attempt to extinguish the inferno of ire he'd managed to start within her. It had been as if he was playing with fire and had dropped a match, setting something aflame that should have never been burning yet was often set alight: her temper.

Oh, but he'd always played with matches around her, always pushed the envelope.

"It was just a thought. Calm down."

"Don't tell me to calm down!" That was when he'd started shushing her like she was a disobedient child, and the noise had pissed her off even further, "Cut it out!" He had kept going. Now, she isn't sure why that this quickened the end, but it had - oh Lord, _it had. _But years ago, only moments later, the slam of the bedroom door closing behind the pair was the only sound to be heard, and the bed sheets were tangled within seconds, and all was forgiven and forgotten until the next time a conflict arose. It had all become so predictable. _They_ had become so predictable.

How had she not noticed the lack of passion with every movement of their bodies together? How hadn't she felt him drifting away?

_How did she miss the signs?_

* * *

When had he first gone astray?

She wishes she could know.

* * *

In the end, their so-called _happiness_ only lasted about a year. It had only been twelve months, only three hundred and sixty-five days in all, and they had all passed so quickly. It certainly hadn't seemed to last forever, like Hollywood would lead one to believe happiness oft does. It had been more like a two second glimpse of contentment, and God knows two seconds is certainly not ample time for true enjoyment.

Abruptly, he'd started working later, and later…_and later_. It had come to the point that he hadn't been home until eleven each night, much too late for her to bother giving him more than a _goodnight_ when he fell into bed next to her, tired of sex for a reason she hadn't been able to put her finger on. She'd first written it off as him just being bushed from a crappy job with crappy pay and a crappy boss, but those steamy nights they'd once shared became less and less frequent, and when they did happen, they never felt truly satisfied, truly _real_. The sexual release was not as it had once been; they remained tense in bed next to each other even after reaching what they could hardly have called a climax.

Naturally distrustful, she'd announced her suspicions about his lateness yet again, and he'd told her she was _just being crazy_ and _of course he loved her_… _only_ _her._

He was such a fucking liar, and _such_ a good actor.

Bright red lipstick stains had begun to show up on his collar, and she'd _never_ wear bright red lipstick if her life depended on it. He'd started to taste like mint, and she _hated_ mint. His professions of love became less and less frequent, while hers had become more and more commonplace. She'd become desperate to cling onto something she knew was fading away… and he had just been letting it slip through his fingers in favor of something (_someone_) he wanted more.

No, she concludes, there was no single hour when everything fell apart: only small events that slowly led them to the end; like a series of songs in a musical that lead to the finale. It was sluggish but sure, and certainly not all at once. The only certain thing had been that, once it ended, they had both known it would be over forever. There would be no going back if they got a divorce. They wouldn't be one of those cliché couples that split up and then realized that they still loved each other and came running back to their ex-spouse while tearing up the separation agreement. Divorce spelled the end of _Beck and Jade_, something they weren't sure they were ready to part with.

So hold on they did.

_'Til death did they part…or maybe just until they hated each other enough._

Inside, she had known it was Tori all along. She'd had premonitions that it would be that girl who brought about their downfall, who would sink her claws in Beck and drag him away from Jade. She'd dreamt of it recurrently, of Beck and Tori together with her off in some remote corner, crying, alone and cold. Ever since she'd first showed up at Hollywood Arts, she'd _known_. Beck was perfect and Tori was perfect, and they fit together better than she ever had with him. Tori was never jealous, hardly ever angry, hardly _ever_ fought with _anybody_. She was all Jade hadn't been and would never be, and it angered her to think that she could never seem to make herself good enough for him, how she couldn't change what she was inside: angry, demanding, jealousy prone. Tori had been good enough, and then some. She'd been an unattainable kind of good in Jade's eyes, and so she just resorted to one of the things she knew best: _hatred._ She hated Tori, for being so good, for being just what Beck wanted. Hate had been such a simple feeling. It was much easier to hate than to love.

So she'd begun to hate him, and he had begun to hate her, too.

Still, they held on.

"Am I _never_ enough for you? God, I fucking _hate you_!" she'd screamed at him one sinister night, on the verge of tossing their beat up dishes at his head. She had meant it, too, but she hadn't even been able to remember how that fight had started. She figures that they'd been fighting over nothing, like they often did. She'd been holding on so urgently despite her declarations of loathing, even though she knew he was cheating on her and she wanted to leave and hated him with every fiber of her being - _God_ she _did. _But she _couldn't_, _couldn't_ find it in herself leave. Even though it was killing her inside, she'd held on, and she'd found that so very strange, for she'd broken up with him for the smallest things back in high school – like the Alyssa Vaughn ordeal, or for looking at another girl the wrong way, or any other events in the plethora of trivial matters she had over exaggerated and dumped him for. Although he had been committing the ultimate offense then - an extramarital affair - she just _hadn't wanted it to end. _They weren't just boyfriend/girlfriend anymore. They were _married_. There had been so much more commitment than before, and neither of them had really liked it… but neither could bear to end it, either.

"You know what, Jade? I think I hate you, too." Oh, it had always been fine for her to insult him, but when he dared say anything back… it broke her down. Those words were no exception, and her lower lip had begun to quiver - but she bit down on it hard and fought the sadness with all her might, for she was weak enough already and _would not_ just let herself fall apart in front of him. She only pushed past him and towards the door, a shadow escaping running away from a light, a love running from a hatred. She couldn't find herself able to say anything back, because _he hated her. _That alone had stolen any words she could've said in reply.

"Wait, Jade, I didn't mean it. I-" he'd sputtered, trailing behind her with only the smallest hopes for forgiveness in his head. But she'd just slammed the door to their bedroom and crawled into their bed and she tried so very hard not to smell his cologne on the pillows, on the sheets, on _everything_ in the room that he had touched. Even though it was summer, the abhorrence in the air had made it so, so cold and she'd been shivering, for she had no blanket to cover herself with. She felt numb and alone, and that loneliness had been the most horrible feeling she'd ever felt (_and yet, such a familiar feeling nowadays_).

She'd been alone in a marriage, because she had done more than enough to make the other half despise her. Jade had only been able to think of how she was sure he no longer loved her, how he loved Tori instead, how he'd probably jump at the chance to be rid of her if he could. Revenge had not been amongst her thoughts then; she'd had her fill of that in high school. No, that moment had been the time for sadness, for loneliness, for overwhelming hatred toward Beck for being able to break her heart and doing so and seeming to harbor no regret afterward.

He could've come after her, could've pushed away the seclusion she was trapped in – but for the first time, he made no attempt to follow her.

* * *

The pattern of hate continued.

It had all become so _predictable._

* * *

Eventually, it had ended, as all marriages of fire and ice must.

He'd arrived home just minutes before midnight – the latest he'd ever been. As always, she'd stupidly stayed up, waiting for him with bags threatening to hang under her eyes. She'd looked so much older than she had been; so much more bitter and jaded than she'd actually felt. She had been staring at the old wooden clock on the mantel, but the hands refused to move for her, as if trying and succeeding to further invite rage into her bloodstream. She was sitting at the kitchen table, she remembers, when she'd heard the door open with the telltale _creak_. Jade had sensed him creeping in as if he was trying to hide from her, the woman he'd grown to despise, the wife who no longer wore her wedding ring as religiously as she once had, the miserable lady who tortured herself by waiting up for him every night even when she knew that he was having an affair with her longtime rival.

He had accidentally left his phone at home that morning, and one unknowing text message from Tori Vega had finally sent her over the edge. It had been beyond pardonable. But, for the first time, she had solid proof.

"Where were you?" she demanded as soon as he walked into view, staring at the glowing screen of his cell and three seconds away from breaking it into pieces.

"Work," he had spoken back in a reluctant, weary monotone. She hated seeing him so tired, so bored, so sick of their marriage and so, so sick of her, the girl who clung to him like Velcro – but she'd hated simply _seeing_ him even more, so the rest just all ran to the back of her mind.

"Until _midnight_?" Livid, she held back a yawn and gnashed her teeth together, but she could not find the energy to get her legs to stand. Her words had taken him aback, and for the moments he'd left his mouth agape, she'd approached him and shoved the phone in his face. His vision had been blinded by the sudden shine of the screen, but, through the spots in his eyes, he'd seen Tori's text message as plain as day, unashamedly inquiring_ about when _she_ would be gone_ and _when she could see him next without _her_ finding out._

Oh, but she had always _known._

"Read the phone, Beck," she'd seethed, seconds before she had flung the object at the nearest wall as hard as she could. It landed with a puff of smoke and a shower of sparks on the carpet, but the destruction brought no relief, "_Read the phone_!"

"Jade, I-I can explain-"

"Oh, spare me explanations, you asshole. I've known for…for _months_. You really think I'm _that_ naive, don't you?"

"Babe-"

"Do _not_ 'babe' me. Shit, I always _knew_ it would be that little whore," she'd stormed around the room and ripped at her hair and savored the welcome pain.

_I hate you, Beck Oliver. I hate you. I've never hated - and loved - anyone more._

The glass on a picture frame behind her was suddenly shattered, and when she drew her hand back into her line of sight, she saw that it was dampened with blood.

"Don't…don't call her that," he'd honestly feared his face would be her next target, but she'd only roared at his audacity. He'd had the gall to tell her what to address his…his _mistress_ as? Who did he think he was? Some _king_, some _god_, someone who _controlled_ her tongue?

The crimson splattered on the floor. She'd forgotten her knuckles were bleeding.

"Then what would you prefer? Slut, skank, homewrecker? Take your _pick_." He had been struck silent, and she growled once more, because _fuck_, he wasn't even _trying_ to placate her in any way. He'd simply seemed to have given up, for he knew what he'd done was not forgivable in her eyes, "Fuck you, Beck Oliver. _Get out_. _Get out_ of my apartment."

"Jade…" he'd swallowed painfully and hesitated. When he'd spoken, his voice was choked, as if he'd known that the end was finally nigh, "it's my apartment, too."

"No," she shrieked back. Her voice had hardly sounded like her own; she'd sounded like nothing she'd ever heard before, so fuming and so shattered, worse than those betrayed women in movies. Hell had possessed no fury like Jade West-Oliver scorned, and Beck knew it, "_No._ You lost that right the _instant_ you slid inside that little _slut_."

And so, the second time she kicked him out of the apartment was the last.

* * *

She had called him a week later - on his new phone but with that same old, familiar number – and told him that she wanted a divorce. He hadn't even blinked; he'd expected nothing else.

The separation agreement was drawn up shockingly fast – within a matter of weeks, in fact. He had given her everything she asked for, and then some more she didn't, because she had known he felt like he owed her at least that much and probably much more than he had been capable of giving. He'd stolen her trust and hardly anything was a greater loss than an individual's ability to believe in another. He'd shown her that the only person she could ever trust was herself. She'd lost all her faith in love. She'd always known no good could ever come of it.

Yet, during all those horrific divorce proceedings, she had never found it in herself to take her wedding ring off of her finger.

* * *

She only saw Tori once during the short time they were waiting for the divorce to be final.

"You won," was all she'd said to her.

"I…I know," was all Tori had said back.

* * *

The day had come to finalize the separation, and she'd worn black to the courthouse; the color that had defined all her days, the color of her marriage, the color of death and mourning and sad endings. If their wedding was a funeral…well, then that day had been the final burial of whatever had passed away.

He'd worn blue, and she'd hated him more for it.

Their lawyers sat them down and gave them a paper and they signed it without reading or speaking, for they'd already known what it meant. It had meant _the end_. They were closing the storybook of their ill-fated love, and throwing it into a fire (_but they'd always have the ashes to carry with them_). She'd wondered, abruptly, if they had ever really loved each other, or if they had just really loved the idea of being together: evil and good, fire and ice, demanding and laid-back. Had they loved it because they were opposites, foils of each other, because they'd believed that they'd _changed_ each other in some way?

She never asked anyone but herself.

He had signed the paper first, and after that, she had taken the pen with trembling fingers and scrawled her name on the document as well, placing it directly under his. No words were exchanged and she did not look him in the eyes, but she had noticed him cringe when she'd signed as _West_ instead of _Oliver._ She had felt no remorse, though, for that had been what she _was_. She was never meant to be an _Oliver_, anyway, because the Oliver's were perfect and nice, and she was far from both. She remembers thinking that _Tori_ could be Beck's perfect, beautiful trophy wife for all she cared, and she would remain a dirty, damaged _West_, thank you very much. At least she was real. At least she was dirty and damaged and _real, _instead of perfect and lovely and _fake._

But, only seconds after placing their names on that goddamn paper, their lips had been upon each other's, and their salty tears had mixed and clouded their cheerless bedroom eyes, and their lawyers had raised questioning eyebrows and walked out, as most newly divorced couples didn't make out after finalizing the split. They drove back to her apartment, and though it was against her better judgment, it had been the last time she'd ever gone into that goddamn bedroom with him, the last time she ever let him tangle the sheets and thread his fingers through her hair and bate her breath and make her body scream.

She'd always found the sex to be better when there was no commitment, anyway; when a one night stand happened and meant nothing and everything at the same time, when you could be boyfriend/girlfriend one day and then absolutely nothing the next. When he had begun kissing her neck like he'd always done in high school - so tenderly, so softly, so harmlessly, like he'd cater to her every whim if only she'd allow him – Jade had let herself sob freely, but that had been the final time she'd cried (_after that, everything went numb_). Her body had been shaking on top of his, wracked with grief and vacant of any real sexual desire despite the heat between them, and she'd been sure he was crying as well, even if he wasn't sobbing quite as pitifully as she was. He too had been distant and mournful in every touch he stole; she'd been sure his mind was wandering to Tori or someone else he had been fucking behind her back. It had carried the bittersweetness that all last times carry, and it was pleasurable and agonizing, and so many emotions all at once that she still isn't sure to this day whether she really enjoyed it or not.

It was over too soon, for they'd finished as if they both should have been somewhere else…At least, somewhere that was not with each other.

He had been awake when she'd left, and his visage had been chewing away at her as his heartbreaking eyes watched her slide her wedding ring off her finger and drop it onto the pillow next to him. She had wanted to keep it and destroy it at the same time, so she'd just given it back to him without deciding, and then put on her discarded clothing and left without a sound - save for a final, shaking '_I hate you'_ and the slamming of the door. She'd left him there, even though it had still legally been her apartment, and she'd stayed at a deserted park until she was sure he would he gone from her place… along with every remainder of his possessions that may have been left behind.

She'll never forget how he looked just before she shut the door, how he looked sad but relieved, how she had known that he still loved her, but felt a stronger pull to his boyish fascination with the girl who had her name up in lights (_Tori Vega_) than to what they had once called love.

Cat had called to comfort her, but Jade hung up before the other girl could even finish the first sentence out of her mouth: _I'm so sorry._

She had wondered where he'd gone after that, but hadn't cared at the same time. Only two words were racing through her head that day, when she returned to _her_ apartment late in the night and sat on _her_ couch, massaging the place on her hand where a glittery, golden vow of fidelity used to surround. Somehow, she'd known the words were coming, ever since the moment she looked into his eyes and let him slide his ring onto her finger, ever since the instant she let herself feel something for him:

_It's over._

* * *

She had hated him and loved him; wanted him back and wanted never to lay eyes on him again; wanted to knock the teeth out of Tori…but wanted to let it all go because she was tired of hating.

She wanted her life back.

Somehow, she ended up at law school (_of all places_) and funded the education with money her wealthy father had left her in his will. The man had known of her existence and left her money upon the event of his death, yet never made an overture of fatherly love or any other shit that she'd always secretly wanted inside, because she was his _bastard daughter_ and nothing more than a mistake neither parent wanted anything to do with.

She hated every minute of it. She hadn't wanted to become a lawyer at all, but she went through with it nonetheless and graduated and tossed her tinseltown dreams out of her head because they were _unreasonable_ and she'd tried once upon a time to grab hold of them and _failed._

If all their arguments as a married couple had not done any other good…well, at least they had made her a good attorney.

And, of all the things she could have chosen to focus her law career on, she had specialized in divorce.

* * *

She went two years without seeing him. She wouldn't answer his calls, never responded to the voicemails in which he insisted they talk, _if only for five minutes, Jade, please. _She hadn't known why he bothered to call. _He hated her. She hated him_. It wasn't complicated, but still, he could not seem to grasp the concept of loathing – even if he once claimed to feel it toward her.

She remembers the last time she'd ever seen him, when he'd somehow gotten the nerve to bring Tori to the very same coffee shop they'd often frequented back when they were a couple. She'd been off in the corner, and they hadn't seen her at first. Their eyes had been locked, hands and foreheads touching, exhibiting the mushy affection in public like she'd never let him do with her. Was he imagining it was _her_ he was with? His bitter ex-wife? She wasn't sure why the hope remained, but it did, and would not be squashed by the ruthless hand of reality.

But of course not. It could not be. _They hated each other_. What once was adoration was burning resentment. She tried to read the textbook she'd brought with her, if only to take her mind off the pair sitting in such inexorable proximity, but she finally found that she just couldn't take it any more, and slammed the dull thing closed.

_She_ had been the one to walk over, iced coffee in hand, and look into his surprised eyes with an intensity he knew all too well. Tori's face had registered shock, but then fear in quick succession, her eyes begging something along the lines of, _Please don't pour coffee on my head again, Jade. _But she had offered up no apologies, and Jade had known anyway that she wasn't sorry for what she'd done. She was happy. He was happy. Most of all, they were happy _together_. Tori wasn't going to apologize to Beck's ex-wife for giving him the contentment Jade had always held in front of him, but never let him grab hold of. Tori had possessed absolutely no reason to feel sympathy for her.

Surprising herself, she hadn't poured her coffee on the scared young starlet seated in front of her. Her drink had stayed in it's Styrofoam shelter, and her eyes had just been clawing into Beck's, trying so desperately to find out if he missed what they had once had together, if he wanted it back, if he felt something other than hate towards her, if he wished it was Jade sitting across from him; not Tori. And maybe he had been pretending for Tori's sake, but she'd detected nothing except halfhearted apathy in his stare, nothing other than a rather indifferent, _Leave us alone, Jade._

She'd found herself spilling it on him instead.

* * *

That was the last time she'd ever seen Beck Oliver: rubbing the coffee away from his eyes and shaking his caffeine-laden head after her as she walked away.

A month later, she'd moved (_escaped_) to New York. Her new apartment hadn't even a mere _trace_ of black in it. It was all covered in white. _Nothing_ was black; nothing _could_ be black.

Black reminded her of him, of a godawful past.

And she still stumbled onward in that tunnel without a light at its end, lived her life, encountered no love, no hate, no laughter. She climbed up the ladder in the law world, stepped on many on her way up, mourned, hated, wondered, wished. In those years, she had everything a perfect life should be… sans the love part.

She felt no real satisfaction when she learnt of Tori's untimely death in a car accident only four years after the divorce. There was nothing to be happy for; they said the death was instant, occurring the second the car hit hers. She laughs, now, at how, even in death, Tori Vega didn't have to feel suffering. Her whole life was painless, and it came with a swift, painless end.

After all those years, she realized that she was still jealous of her.

She didn't expect him to come running back to her once Tori was dead and gone, and he didn't, anyway, but it didn't matter much to her. Oh no, it didn't matter _much_; it only mattered _everything_ that he never came back to her, seeking comfort, a cold, hated shoulder to cry on. All Beck Oliver had done after her death was disappear. No one had known where he'd gone. No one could find him. His phone number was disconnected. His apartment he once shared with Tori was abandoned. His car was gone. Perhaps no one but Jade ever cared to search for him, and even she never went looking.

She remembers that, the first time she heard of her rival's premature demise, she'd pondered how cruel the fate of the three people bound together and torn apart by love was. The tragic first laid cold in the ground before the age of thirty. The cynical second lived all by herself, cold and alone. The kindhearted third vanished off the face of the planet. The end for all of their tangled stories was not resolute; loose ends were left hanging, never to be tied; hearts were left burning, with a hatred and a love lost; bodies were left pining, for a long forgotten touch stolen by the ages. And so the years had passed, coming and going rapidly, as if the world were suddenly put on fast-forward. Still, no resolution ever came. Beck never returned. News stories lamenting Tori's passing gradually died out. Her empty life dragged on.

She'd never expected a resolution anyway.

* * *

…And now, living in the present once that familiar playback of memories is finished, she'll get up and prepare for the tedious day ahead of her. She'll wear the best clothes, put on the best makeup, eat the best food, for she _is_ the best. She's one of the most highly sought after lawyers in New York City. No one tops her, and emotion does not control her. Neither does love, or _him_, or Cat or _anyone. _She is her own; her heart belongs in her chest where it currently beats - coldly, darkly. She gave herself to Beck and he betrayed her, and she's vowed never to give her heart away again like she was stupid enough to do back then, fresh out of high school and blindly in love, with a shiny band around her finger that wasn't truly meant to be there. Now, she belongs to no one, and she'll never be anyone's to give away or manipulate or control _ever again_.

Maybe she was never really anyone's in the first place.

Every day, after she's ready and hiding behind her thick layer of makeup, she'll go to her office and work on paperwork and do all the shit lawyers do for their clients, and she doesn't like even one _second_ of it. But even so, she does have to say that her favorite divorces to work are the ones that came about because of cheating, restless hearts, those who are discontented with the idea of monogamy, of being tied down to one individual for the rest of their days. She can sympathize; she had gone through it all when she was only nineteen and she's survived. Some of the women she sees now are totally shattered because of the affairs their husbands embark on, and they're thirty, forty, fifty - many years older than she was when it all happened to her. She never let it shatter her like they have. She's survived. That's what she tells them. She always tells them that she's survived, and that they will, too.

She tells them she's survived. What she doesn't tell them is that she's still not completely over it.

* * *

In the end, she'll never be totally over him, her ex-husband, her most hated yet adored love. Once she'd fallen in love with him, she'd doomed herself forever, for no one ever really falls out of love. Once she'd loved him, she'd loved him forever and there never is going to be any way to reverse it. His name is written all over her heart in permanent marker, and she'll never be able to rid herself of the old irreversible ink.

She'd stupidly tempted fate all those years ago – out of some sort of twisted spite, perhaps, because it had often fucked her up in her young years. And maybe if she'd placed that goddamn penny in her shoe, or maybe if she'd walked to the church, or maybe if she hadn't spotted that open grave, or maybe if she hadn't married in black, her marriage would have made it. Maybe fate would have let them stay together; maybe they could have worked it out in the end and, in time, he would've realized how he still loved her, how Tori Vega was merely a fleeting infatuation.

It doesn't matter now, though. Tori's dead, Beck's gone, and she's alone.

And she knows it now, knows that dumb, superstitious old wives' tale Cat had told her while she had been trying on wedding dresses more than a decade and a half ago. She knows it by heart. Did it define her fate, her love, her life? She'll never know, and, even if she still thinks it's dense and superstitious, she repeats it to herself almost every day, while staring into the eyes of those poor, destroyed women she works with; women who always catch her by the arm on their way out and desperately ask her to tell them _how to fall out of love_. She repeats it while thinking of him and their doomed love story, while hating and loving and wondering and wishing…

* * *

_Married in White, you have chosen right__  
__Married in Grey, you will go far away,__  
__Married in Black, you will wish yourself back,__  
__Married in Red, you will wish yourself dead,__  
__Married in Green, ashamed to be seen,__  
__Married in Blue, you will always be true,__  
__Married in Pearl, you will live in a whirl,__  
__Married in Yellow, ashamed of your fellow,__  
__Married in Brown, you will live in the town,__  
__Married in Pink, your spirit will sink._

* * *

Perhaps she should have married in white, chosen right.

But all she knows is that she will never marry again.


End file.
